Sampled grating DBR laser arrays with adjustable 0.8/1.6 nm wavelength spacing

The difficulty in fabricating multiwavelength laser arrays with uniform wavelength spacing is overcome by using sampled grating distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) lasers as the constituent of a laser array. The sampling periods of the DBR mirrors are varied from laser to laser to provide reflection combs with different spacings in wavelength. Arrays of twelve lasers have been successfully fabricated with a single holographic exposure step. The wavelength spacing among the lasers can be adjusted to be around 0.8 or 1.6 nm with a simple tuning mechanism.